Updates, Clarifications, and Corrections...

So my last blog was largely well-recieved and I thank you all for taking the time to read it, but there were some misunderstandings and disagreements.

I'm totally cool with people disagreeing with me -- cocky as I may come across in these posts, I'm well aware that I don't know everything...  But I am trying to learn and I do my damndest to do the research to back up my thoughts and concepts.  If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.  I'll admit it, happily, and then adapt and change my way of thinking.  All I ask is the opportunity to defend my points, as I'm doing here.

Some people seem(ed) to think that my last post was in regards to high school dress codes (at least in part), which I can understand, but was not, in fact, the point.  But the dress-code commenters did make some interesting points, so I'd like to respond to them as they were valuable insights.

First off, I really don't have any issue with the concept of a dress-code at schools.

I agree that school is, in many ways, like a job.  You have rules you have to follow in order to succeed, and if you choose to ignore or go against those rules then you have to be prepared for the consequences.  I also agree that if high schoolers, as teen-agers and young-adults, wish to be taken seriously and treated like adults, then they should be prepared to face the consequences of their actions, good and bad.

All too often, children and teenagers have this attitude that grown-ups get to do whatever they want, which is so laughably untrue I'm tempted to just start randomly punching children out of sheer contempt.

But my filial-violence aside, I'm perfectly okay with reasonable dress-codes at schools.

Regrettably, existing dress codes perpetuate the very real gender stereotypes that exist in the U.S.

You can't deny that there's a tremendous male-privilege problem in the U.S. which manifests itself in any number of ways -- ranging from employment and wage inequality to straight up rape-encouragement.  Whether it's Matt Lauer being a dick to the CEO of GM or colleges failing to actually punish rapists.

(if you're looking for rage/murder fuel, feel free to click on any of last six words in the previous paragraph.  If you don't want to lose your faith in humanity and our educational system, don't...  Just don't)

And if you think that school dress codes don't encourage, support, or perpetuate gender stereotypes, take a second and just Google "high school dress codes."

(actually, don't bother - I've done it for you)

I can't speak for any of you, but a few observations I have about those images...

1. Girls are told not to wear "revealing clothing" while boys are told not to wear "inappropriate slogans/logos."
2. Girls are told not to wear short skirts or shorts, while boys are told not to wear saggy, baggy pants.
3. Girls are told not to have exposed midriffs, boys are told not to have gang tattoos.
4. Girls can't have spaghetti strap shirts, boys can't have wallet-chains.

Add this all up, and to me, at least, we have schools telling girls not to dress "provacatively," and boys can't look...  I don't know, like "thugs." 

(yes, I put that in quotes.  I did it because I couldn't think of a better term.  Quite frankly I think it's a completely stupid look/style to begin with, but I don't know what the politically correct term for it is these days, and that's not the point of this post anyway)

"Aha!"  I hear many of you saying (whatever you're reading this blog on has a microphone, I'm sure), "those rules apply equally to boys as well as girls!  Surely the boys aren't allowed to run around topless, either!"

Normally, I'd agree with you...

And then I found this.

That photo came out of the same yearbook that photoshopped extra clothing onto girls for the sake of "modesty."  

So are girls' dress-codes the same thing as "slut shaming?"  Not in and of themselves, no.  But like so many things it all comes down to how they're executed and enforced.  When boys/males are encouraged to rebel, whether consciously or subconsciously, while the girls are secretly covered up, you've really gotta ask what message the administration is trying to send.

And just like how high school is used to help transition children into young-adulthood and teach them the ways of the grown-up world beyond academia, that male-female double-standard teaches them that men can do things that women can't.  That boys don't get into trouble when they break the rules -- they're celebrated for it, while girls who haven't even broken the rules (but could be said to come close to doing so) are forced to change (either after the fact, with photoshop; or directly, with public humiliation and being sent home).  

Is it the end of the world?  No.  Not at all.

Is it as harsh as other forms of discrimination?  Not as such, no.

Is it as extreme as letting admitted rapists walk free?  Good gods, no.

But every time a boy sees that he can get away with something that a girl can't, he learns.  Whether consciously or unconsciously, he learns that the rules are not the same for boys and girls.  He learns that he can do things that earn him an "atta boy" and a chuck on the shoulder that a girl would be chided for.  

Add all of those little instances up, and suddenly that boy has grown into a man that has never seen women as equals because he's never been shown that women are equals.

It's not just dress codes...  It's the constant combination of societal norms and mores that creates the sexism that runs rampant throughout our society today.  

But even village-destroying avalanches start with the tiniest of pebbles rolling downhill.

So instead of ignoring "the little things," why don't we simply address them and fix the problem?  If they're such small problems as to be considered insignificant, they should be easily fixed.

And if they're not so easily fixed, they're a bigger problem than we're willing to admit, and need to be fixed anyway.

Either way, fix the damn problem.

(I'm really coming to appreciate logic in my old age...  Now that I'm starting to understand it and learning how to use it)

A rebuttal...

An open response to Jessica Huseman and her charming article Sorry, But A 15-Year Old in Jorts Isn't Going To Tell Me What RapeCulture Is.

Congratulations -- you are now, officially, no longer part of the solution, you are now part of the problem.

First off, before I go anywhere else with this, I have to acknowledge that yes, I am a male, and yes, I am going to be talking about rape-culture.  I know I may seem oddly unqualified for this (the presence of a penis seems to immediately put people on edge about one's qualifications to talk about it objectively), but I hope that I am not misunderstood.  I am a staunch ally of the LGBTQ community and also a feminist and I'd like to think that even if I don't yet fully comprehend the problem, I at least know that there is one, it is massive, and it is going to take a lot of work from EVERYBODY (especially those who are genitally-inclined as I am) to correct it.

That being said, I have read the Huseman article several times now, hoping like hell that this was one of those ironic articles -- something that you'd normally find on The Onion, or even perhaps The Stranger, on the opinions page (and please, someone correct me if I did just miss the point).  Regrettably, she seems sincere in her words.

Which, going back to the beginning, has now made her part of the problem.

For those of you too lazy to read the article (and I don't blame you if you don't -- it has literally enraged me to the point where I couldn't stop thinking about it until I wrote this blog post when I should be actually working), it basically derides the actions of Lindsey Stocker of Quebec, Canada for having the teenage audacity to post signs around her school reading "Don't humiliate her because she's wearing shorts.  It's hot outside.  Instead of shaming girls for their bodies, teach boys that girls are not sexual objects."

I KNOW, RIGHT!?  How stupidly senseless can a teenage girl BE!?  She's actually speaking OUT about something that MATTERS to her and could potentially make an IMPACT!?  Oh, ho ho ho...  Those wacky high-schoolers.  Don't they know nobody cares what they think?

At least, that's (only partially) what Jessica Huseman seems to think, and (again, only some of) what she says in her article.

First off, I don't think any grown woman attacking a teenaged girl for standing up for herself deserves to be taken seriously.  Period.  According to your bio you're a fellow of investigative journalism at Columbia Journalism school.  In theory, at least, you're a grown-up.  You probably pay taxes, have bills, have a home of your own in some way, shape, or form...  And you're attacking a 15 year old girl who stood up for herself.

Over the Internet.

Without even bothering to...  y'know, do the journalistic thing and, I don't know, CALL HER YOURSELF and TALK TO HER before you make wild assumptions about her and her classmates based on the banality of Twitter and the 160 character asininity contained therein.

So right there, we have a problem.  You're openly cyber-bullying a girl you don't know, and you're doing it through a fairly major publication like The Daily Banter.  Congratulations, you're a high-class internet troll.

(you're also a grown woman using the term "jorts."  Frankly, anybody who uses the term "jorts" should be force-fed several pairs of them until they get their lazy asses in gear and start actually saying "jean shorts" or simply "shorts."  "Jort" is not a word.  At best it's an onomatopoeic of the sound made when you're trying to squeeze out a fart quietly so nobody notices, and fail)  

Now on to the meaty center of the argument.

See, some time ago it was pointed out/explained to me that media and modern society/culture intentionally creates antagonistic relationships between women.  There are several theories behind why this is -- some speculate that "the powers that be" are trying to keep women at each other's throats, rather than banding together to fight their true enemies.  Some claim that it's instinctive and that since women outnumber men globally, they MUST fight each other in order to acquire the alpha males of their community (short version:  it's biological/anthropological). 

But whatever the reason, there's really no hiding the fact that women are typically aimed at each other when angered.  They form cliques and ostracize the girls that are different, taking cues from a male-dominated media to determine what's "in" and then excluding the girls who aren't doing what the men in their lives order them to do or behave the way their "supposed" to behave (whether the orders are given subliminally or overtly).

Nevertheless, what Huseman does in her article is just that -- she's attacking a woman who bothered to stand up for herself. 

Not even a woman, a girl. 

(granted, she's 15, but I don't really want to get into a whole debate about when girls become women and the whole child-bearing age vs. societal norms for adulthood etc. etc. etc.  She's 15, she's a girl)

Now I remember how hard it was for me, as a boy, at 15 to stand up and assert myself at anything.  And I was a boy.  A white boy.  A middle-class white boy.  Basically, the world was my turnip and I was still scared shitless of it.  So I can only imagine the terror of what it would be like to be going through that same experience as a girl. 

But she did it.  Lindsey Stocker took a stance against the status quo that told her "Your shorts are too short, that's inappropriate, you have to change them." 

First off -- I think she's absolutely right in her stance.  Telling a girl she has to "cover up" or "change" because she's being "too revealing" is fucking ridiculous.  There are extremes (there always are), but there are plenty of pictures (even one in Huseman's article) that show what Lindsey was wearing and (to me, at least) it wasn't a revealing outfit in any way, shape, or form.  It's not like she was parading around in a sheer bodysuit and fishnets -- she was wearing a sweater and shorts. 

Whoopdee

Fucking

Do.

And I also agree with the over-arching societal message that we shouldn't be telling women to cover up, we should be teaching men that women ARE NOT FUCKING PLAYTHINGS TO BE OGLED AND STARED AT. 

Women are not here for you.  They are not objects to be won.  They are not treasures to be captured.  They are human fucking beings.  Period. 

So rather than teaching women to "cover themselves," we should really be teaching men, expecially boys (y'know, during that whole developmental stage when they learn things and shit?), that women are to be respected and treated as equals.  Much like the topless initiatives that seek to de-sexualize breasts, human bodies are all composed of the same parts.  Everybody's look different, but they're still the same thing.  A dick is a dick.  Tits are tits.  No matter how big or small they are (that goes for both of the aforementioned parts).  There's nothing sexual about any body part, inherently, because literally ANY body part CAN be sexual -- it all depends on how you use it (and if you have any clue what you're doing with it).

So back to the topic at hand -- Miss Huseman and Miss Stocker. 

I think MORE young girls should be taught to stand up for themselves and assert their humanity and demand their equality like Miss Stocker did, because it's going to take a lot of hammering the point home to get it through society's thick skull.  I think we really do need to change the national talking points -- get away from asking "what was she wearing" and start asking "what the fuck was he thinking" when we hear stories of rape, gropings, unwanted advances, stalking, domestic abuse...  The list is truly, mind-bogglingly, regrettably, endless. 

And as important as that, we need to stand together.  I'm not saying you have to agree, necessarily, with everything being said.  But rather than openly and cruelly attacking someone (as Miss Huseman did), talk to that person, instead, and try to understand more of what they're saying and doing.  At least do that before you go out in the open and decide to viciously unload on some brave girl who did what she thought was right (and, in my opinion, was right and incredibly brave for her to do so). 

Because now that you've attacked another woman, you're now a part of the problem, Jessica.  You're a tool for the oppressors.  Worse yet, you've done their job for them. 

Congratulations.  I hope it was worth it.  Because I know I can never take anything you write seriously ever again.  And I'm sure I'm not alone.